And Still I Rise

And Still I Rise

Adult nonfiction
A lot of people see black history in neat little files with tabs
like slavery days and the civil rights era. That's why Henry Louis
Gates Jr. and Kevin M. Burke's And Still I Stand should be in every
public library and many homes in this nation.
The written companion to a PBS series, And Still I rise delivers
fifty years of black history falling between the waning years of the
civil rights movement and the second term of Obama's presidency:
1965-2015. It's a year by year who's who and what's what of important
events and personalities in politics, scholarship, music, sports,
literature, and the arts. Plenty of amazing photographs should bring
back memories. This in itself should be more than enough
justification for buying and enjoying the book.
"Put another way, it is a book that illuminates the world that
the Civil Rights Movement birthed and enabled, and that its legacy
sustained--from affirmative action to the integration of our nation's
universities, from the ascent of numerous black mayors in numerous
cities to the development of black capitalism and the phenominal rise
of the black middle class, from the domination of popular culture by
black artists and performers to the rise of black access to and
leadership in any number of fields once closed to the many millions of
descendents of slaves."
But if you read it more deeply than a casual skim it also raises
disturbing questions:
*Why do the police still harass and shoot so many unarmed blacks?
*Why are blacks so overrepeesented in our nation's schools?
*Why are America's schools regressing back to separate and anything
but equal?
*Why, while some blacks make amazing progress, are others stuck in
depressed neighborhoods that are devoid of meaningful jobs and hope
and too often the dumping grounds for toxic substances?
*Why are some whites so determined to undermine any progress that
blacks make?
They all build up to the most central question: what can we be
doing now that someone writing a similar book fifty years from now
won't have to balance amazing strides forward with so many setbacks?
On a personal note, Halloween was bittersweet. It was mostly great.
I had a wonderful costume: Tinkerbelle Gone Bad complete with black
wings with skulls and crossbones. I even had a song:
The name is Tink.
I know what you think
That I'm a sweet and innocent fairy.
Oh, what the Hell?
I ditched the Belle
So let's get down and get scary.
Homework? Too much work.
Classes? I passes.
The campus police?
I'm who they want to bust
For my franchise in fairy dust."
I had fun rocking my costume. I even got to wear it to work. I had
people take pictures of me with the decorations at the union. And i
got lots of goodies at the campus trick or treat. The sad part was
Eugene had made up lovely bags of candy and, for the first time in 28
years, no kids came trick or treating. I had me an adventure last
night. I worked brunch at Wells and then studied at Fogler Library.
When I left to catch the bus the wind was roaring like an oncoming
freight train. It knocked me down a short flight of stairs and I weigh
114. When I got to Veazie there were no street or houselights. I
thought I'd stumble home in pitch black. But an eerie yellow light
lit the woods path and trailer park. It was like right before the
alien space ship appears. At home I did homework by lantern light.
Today I learned nearly 80,000 homes lost power.
A great big shout out goes out to my Wells colleagues who worked in
costume, all who made Halloween at the Union a real treat, my
wonderful husband who is off at camp for vaca, and the dearest little
cat in the world,
Joey aka Senor Fuzzygato.
jules hathaway


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